Re: The FEAR is Our own worst enemy.

[Tom Mohaupt <tom.mohaupt@wright.edu>]

There are ways to test epidemiology findings. For instance, seat belts.
Many years ago someone suggested that if seat belts were installed in cars,
deaths by car accidents would go down. And they did. 

Let's look at radon. Someone says that radon causes lung cancer and we have
to mitigate it. Mitigation will save tens of thousands of lives. Great! How
many of you have seen a plan for a scientifically valid follow-up of
whether those tens of thousands of lives are actually saved? I don't think
there is a plan. That's a problem. Most of us in the radiation safety
business check to see if our corrective actions are effective. Here's a
multi-billion dollar program that has no check for effectiveness. If
smoking goes up, lung cancers go up. If smoking goes down, lung cancers
decline also. The effect of radon is either too small or inconsequential.
But thousands of theoretical lives were saved.

Let's look at the Oxford Study of Childhood Cancer. The case-control study
found that about 15% of children who developed cancer under 15 y.o. were
x-rayed in utero. About 10% to 11% of children who did not develop cancer
were x-rayed in utero. The difference is 4% to 5%. The odds ratio is 1.40
to 1.50. You won't see the difference value in any review paper. You'll
only see the odds ratio, and that's because is sounds more impressive. Doll
and Wakeford state that the excess absolute risk coeffient is about 6% per
gray. Knox et al state that one cancer in ever 992 in utero x-rays produces
one solid cancer and one leukemia. The problem is that the projected values
from the case-control data base have not been tested. How do you test the
theory? Prospective studies. Court-Brown did a prospective study on almost
40,000 prenatal x-rayed children. He found 9 leukemias and expected 10.
According to Knox's projection, he should have found 40 to 50. [Note: BEIR
VII is using Doll's study, but not Court-Brown's]. The same goes for
essentially all prospective studies. Think of Chernobyl and the number of
solid cancers and leukemias are predicted. The founder of the Oxford Study
noted that she didn't understand why case-control studies show excess
cancers and prospective studies don't.
Bottom Line (finally): In industrial safety, you identify the problem,
implement a method for personal safety, and check for its effectiveness. In
radiation safety, suggest a problem, implement a method for personal
safety, and stop there. Projected lives saved are assumed to be real. This,
to me, is a serious flaw.
Tom
Noted references available on request.


Al Tschaeche wrote:
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> We're getting closer to the nub of the problem.  It is possible to demonstrate
> something is harmful.  It is impossible to demonstrate something has no risk.
> However, until we have evidence to demonstrate significant harm to the whole
> human race, it is wrong to require demonstration of safety before something is
> done.  If that were the case, no one would ever do anything.  Until you do it,
> demonstration of no risk is impossible.  After you do it, demonstration of harm,
> if any, is possible.  The nuclear industry has carried on for decades, stuck in
> the erroneous idea that absolute safety must be demonstrated before the LNTH is
> abandoned.  Even when there is no demonstrated harm at the current levels (5 rem
> per year for workers and the old 500 mrem per year for the public), we keep on
> requiring proof of no harm at levels even below those and the US EPA and NRC
> fight about the difference between 15 and 25 mrem per year to the public.  It is
> insane, IMHO.
> 
> "Tsurikov, Nick" wrote:
> 
> > Yep,
> > But there is no definite proof that these "future" health effects will NOT
> > occur either.
> 
> So what?  Should we shiver in our boots with fear that they might occur?  Why,
> only in the nuclear industry, does such fear happen. (Yes, I have read "Nuclear
> Fear".) I don't see it in other industries.  Certainly not in flying where a
> whole plane load of people died and similar planes were not immediately
> grounded, even after 21 were found with problems similar to those of the doomed
> plane.  When the engines came off the DC10s, planes were grounded.  Why not
> now?  Is the air industry different from ours?  If so, how, except that it is
> more dangerous.
> 
> > The 'proof' FOR or AGAINST in regards to health effects of
> > low-level radiation is somewhere in the distant future and, if it will ever
> > emerge - no absolute acceptance will be the case; even if this proof will be
> > undeniable.
> 
> Yup.  There are still some people who believe the earth is flat.  Beliefs get
> you in trouble.
> 
> > For now, if someone writes that 'every photon is dangerous to your health' -
> > good, great, that's the guy!  If someone writes about hormesis, it means
> > that the person has been bought...  Go, figure...
> > And, when a new technology is introduced or an existing one is assessed, the
> > following precautionary principle applies:
> > >>>>>In dealing with potentially hazardous technologies the benefit of the
> > doubt must go to the public and not to technologies.<<<<<
> 
> Somehow we must expunge this idea from human thinking.  Experience is what
> counts not phobic fear.  Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net
> 
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-- 
Thomas Mohaupt, M.S., CHP
University Radiation Safety Officer

104 Health Sciences Bldg
Wright State University
Dayton, Ohio 45435
tom.mohaupt@wright.edu
(937) 775-2169
(937) 775-3761 (fax)

"An investment in knowledge gains the best interest." Ben Franklin
My vested thoughts and nothing more.
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